Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

Isn't this exactly why so many of us have been saying that she shouldn't be on the ticket? She has no experience.

And if she's not ready to debate Biden, what chance would she have arguing with Putin should anything happen to McCain and she had to become Commander in Chief?

McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin’s debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain’s positions, rather than spending time talking about her experience or playing defense.

The McCain campaign is becoming a joke, they are trying to protect her from ever having to prove that she is ready for the job whilst claiming that they have no worries about her performance.

Even Andrew Sullivan gets what's wrong here:

Sullivan: "She is a farce. This, this nomination... The nomination of this person to be potentially President of the United States next January - that's the possibility, technically speaking; she could be President next January - is a joke. It is absurd. It is something which should be dismissed out of hand as the most irresponsible act any candidate has ever made."

Now the McCain camp are saying that she is not ready even to debate with Biden.

And the notion that to attack Palin is somehow "sexist" is an insult to Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Hillary Clinton and all the other women who have proven that they were more than capable of holding their own in any debate with anyone who the other side dared to put before them.

The McCain camp are now tacitly admitting what we all already know: this is a stunt, it's a crude gimmick. And the very fact that McCain was prepared to take such a risk, at his age, with the security of the nation and allow for even the possibility that someone this spectacularly unqualified could find themselves leading the free world, says more about McCain's recklessness than anything else ever could.

It's not only that she's unfit for the job, but by nominating her, McCain has shown that he is unfit for the job as well.

UPDATE:

This article says exactly what I believe to be the case, Palin has become a liability for McCain's ticket.

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That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.